Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 351

These cuts are a con – we'll soon be just like Greece (but without the lovely beaches)

This is Peter Hicthens' Mail on Sunday column

Anyone would think that the late General Pinochet, Chile's ultra-conservative military dictator, had risen from his grave and was stalking Britain, slashing public spending with an axe and machine-gunning screaming public-service workers in football stadiums.

The exaggerated fuss over George Osborne's Budget is crude spin.

Unlike proper, old-fashioned Budgets, which could not be leaked on pain of political death, this propaganda document...

Treading Water with 'Stan'

Can nobody help me with this lone struggle against obtuseness? We now have the response from 'Stan' (who is not limited to any maximum number of words) and it is this, almost wholly unresponsive item, apparently written by someone who hasn't read most of what I have written.

I will take it piece by piece.

'Stan': 'You claim that the British guarantee to Poland changed history is "blindingly obvious" without any way to substantiate this claim. How do you "know" it changed history? How do you...

Further and Better Particulars

I'll take this opportunity to deal with some queries raised by readers over the past week or so. I'd point out here that I gave special priority to the historical issues raised by 'Stan' because one main purpose of this site is to discuss matters wider than immediate events.

I think the time has arrived when we in Britain can honestly re-evaluate the received wisdom about World War II. In fact, I think that if we are to understand our current place in the world, and the way in which we have...

General reflections

For me, the fact that 300 have now died in the British military operation in Afghanistan is no worse than the death of one. And I would add here that to each death we should add two, three or more serious maimings and injuries, just as devastating for the families of those affected, but not spoken about or reported upon. These will affect the victim and his immediate family and friends for years and years to come.

For me, each of these deaths and woundings is indefensible because each has...

Treading on dreams - my struggle with 'Stan'

I would dearly love to abandon the struggle to persuade 'Stan' that the British guarantee to Poland in 1939 changed history - to me a statement so blindingly obvious that I might as well be asked to prove that it would have been quicker to go from London to Cambridge by train than it was to go by bicycle.

I have grown weary of repeating this case over and over again, to someone who - while hiding behind a false or incomplete identity and so protected from any real feeling of personal slight...

A genuine Tory speaks out... and all Dave can do is flannel

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

A real opposition is starting to take shape in the worst Parliament of modern history. Let us hope it now grows in strength and conviction. Among all the oily creeps, thrusting airhead careerists and quota-selected women, we can hear the occasional voice speaking for the people.

Prime Minister's Questions, transformed by Coalition politics into a flabby, empty occasion, suddenly developed bite last Wednesday – but not across the Dispatch Box...

Deep depression approaching from the Left

A few thoughts and responses to contributors follow, starting with some interesting reflections, by others,  on the 'Depression' movement. The first comes from a report in 'The Times' (of London) on Monday 14th June. This quotes a psychologist called Irving Kirsch as saying that evidence is 'overwhelming' that there is no link between 'Depression' and Serotonin, the brain chemical that many (if not all?) 'anti-depressant' drugs are supposed to affect. Professor Kirsch says research shows...

Britain versus America

As usual, many contributors to this discussion have paid little attention to what I actually said (but thanks to the Wall Street Journal for kindly mentioning this modest posting).

I was not, as one American critic claimed 'whingeing' about President Obama's behaviour. On the contrary, I was saying it was about time British people realised that the USA is not some kind of sugar-daddy, rich uncle and unflinching friend. President Obama, who threw his own grandmother 'under the bus' (as the...

Londonderry air

'Jonathan S' is against the apology for Bloody Sunday. He says the Crown cannot do such a thing. Nor can it. But Her Majesty's government can, and rightly did. Very few Irish people, either side of the border, wanted a war in 1969. A very small number of bilious hate-mongers did want a war, and succeeded in getting one by use of the classic methods of terror. The shame was that the lawfully-constituted authorities reacted with text-book incompetence, as if they had read the terrorist...

I'm an anti-atheist, not a vicar

Mr 'Un' complains that a theologian I recommended (to persons who wanted to pick a fight with me about theology) doesn't agree with me about everything. So what?

These critics, who apparently couldn't be bothered to read my book 'The Rage Against God', and so wrongly imagined that it was a work of Christian apologetics, wanted to argue about theology, about which I know little and in which I have no great interest. And which I do not discuss in the book. Amusingly, Mr 'Un' says he found...